Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 19 November 2014

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 19 November 2014

National

Kisan Vikas Patra Scheme (KVP) relaunched

• Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Communication Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad relaunched the Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) investment scheme to tap household savings for funding infrastructure development in the country and to lure them away from ponzi schemes.
• The savings instrument will be available in the denomination of Rs. 1000, Rs. 5,000, Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 50,000. There will be no upper ceiling on investments an investor can make in them. However, no tax benefits would be available on these investments.
• Banks will accept these certificates as pledged security for loans.
• To begin with, the certificates will be available only at post offices. Over time, however, designated branches of nationalised banks will also sell them.
• The certificates will carry a lock-in period of 2 years and 6 months after which they will become encashable on pre-determined maturity value. Investments made in the certificate will double in 8 years and 4 months.
• Government will deploy the collections under the scheme to finance development plans of the Centre and State Governments.

DoPT clarifies on CSE

• The Centre’s decision in February to allow two additional attempts to all categories of candidates for the Civil Services Examination (CSE) with effect from 2014 rendered infructuous the Group of Ministers’ decision last December to lower the upper age limit for eligibility from CSE 2015.
• While the age limit earlier was 30, 35, 33 and 40 years respectively for the unreserved, SC/ST, OBC and the physically challenged categories, consequential changes in the age limit due to provision of two additional attempts are 32 years for the unreserved, 37 for the SC/ST, 35 for the OBC and 12 additional years (30+12 for General, 35+12 for SC/ST and 33+12 for OBC) for the physically challenged candidates in each category.

Modi gifts Rani of Jhansi's petition to Toni Abbott

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi gifted to his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott Australian lawyer John Lang’s 1854 petition against the East India Company on behalf of Rani Lakshmibai .
• Mr. Modi gave the gift to Mr. Abbott just ahead of bilateral talks. “John Lang’s original petition of 1854 on behalf of Jhansi ki Rani against the East India Company,” External Affairs spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin tweeted.
• Earlier, Mr. Modi was given a ceremonial guard of honour and a 19-gun salute at the forecourt of the Parliament. Prime Minister Abbott and several Indians were present on the occasion.
• Then he proceeded towards the Prime Minister’s Office for bilateral talks. Born in 1816 in Sydney, Lang is generally regarded as Australia’s first native novelist. As a man of many talents, he was also a lawyer, journalist and born traveller.
• In 1842, he sailed to India and made the country his new home, even learning the Hindustani language. While carrying on a successful legal practice, he started a newspaper in 1845 called The Moffusilite, published initially from Meerut and later from Mussoorie.
• The paper often took a critical stance against the East India Company’s harmful policies and consequently he was sued and briefly jailed by the Company.
• In 1854, Lang became the counsel of Lakshmibai — an iconic figure in the Indian uprising of 1857.

Nanavati panel submits its report on Gujarat riots

• Twelve years after it was constituted, the Nanavati Commission of Enquiry probing the 2002 post-Godhra riots submitted its final report to Chief Minister Anandiben Patel.
• Justice Nanavati and Commission member Justice Akshay Mehta met Ms. Patel at her residence and handed over the report. Justice Nanavati told PTI that the report was over 2,000 pages, but did not divulge anything further.
• “The report will be forwarded to the Home department. The department will review it and place the report before the Assembly,” K. Kailashnathan, Chief Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister told.
• The Commission’s term expired on October 31 after 24 extensions. It submitted the first part of its report related to the Sabarmati Express in 2008, which said that the train burning was a “planned conspiracy.”
• The same year, after the death of Justice K.G. Shah, retired HC Justice Akshay Mehta was appointed to the Commission.

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International

WB approves $285 million to fight Ebola

• The World Bank has approved a grant of $285 million to finance the three West African countries hardest hit by the Ebola crisis.
• The grant is part of the nearly $1 billion of financing previously announced by the World Bank for Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, reports Xinhua.
• The additional financing will enable the three countries to deploy additional national and international health workers, scale up community-based care and community engagement for early detection of suspected Ebola cases, the World Bank in a statement.
• A previous World Bank analysis showed that if Ebola continues to surge in these three countries and spreads to neighbouring countries, the two-year regional financial impact would reach $32.6 billion by the end of 2015.
• According to the World Health Organisation, as of November 14, 2014, 14,413 Ebola cases have been registered in eight countries since the outbreak, with 5,177 deaths.

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Science & technology

Western Ghats facing significant conservation concerns: IUCN

• World Heritage Sites such as the Western Ghats, Manas Wildlife Sanctuary, Kaziranga National Park and Sundarbans are facing significant conservation concerns, according to an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assessment.
• The IUCN World Heritage Outlook report, released at the ongoing World Park Congress at Sydney, had assessed 228 World Heritage sites for natural values.
• While none of the seven Indian sites qualified to be included in the ‘good’ category, the Great Himalayan National Park, Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks and Keoladeo National Parks were assessed as ‘good with some concerns’. There were no Indian sites in the ‘critical’ category.
• The report attempted to “recognise well-managed sites for their conservation efforts and encourage the transfer of good management practices between sites” and identified the “most pressing conservation issues affecting natural World Heritage sites and the actions needed to remedy those issues.”
• The 39 serial sites of Ghats, which were inscribed in 2012 “amid some controversy”, are “under increasing population and developmental pressure that requires intensive and targeted management efforts to ensure that not only are existing values conserved, but that some past damage may be remediated,” it said.
• The sites that are “traditionally conserved by small populations of indigenous people leading sustainable lifestyles”, face many challenges. The serial sites of Ghats are spread across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Comet lander Philae ‘sniffs’ organic molecules

• Scientists confirmed that the European comet lander Philae had 'sniffed' organic molecules on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko containing carbon elements, a basis of life on Earth, before its primary battery ran out and it shut down.
• Philae landed on the comet after a 10-year journey through space aboard the Rosetta spacecraft on a mission to unlock details about how planets and maybe even how life evolved.
• It wrapped up its 57-hour mission on the comet's surface after radioing back data from a series of experiments as its battery ran out.
• The Cometary Sampling and Composition (COSAC) gas analysing instrument on Philae was able to 'sniff' the atmosphere and detect the first organic molecules after landing, the DLR German Aerospace Center said.
• The lander also drilled into the comet's surface in its hunt for organic molecules, although it is unclear as yet whether Philae managed to deliver a sample to COSAC for analysis.
• Also onboard the lander was the Multi purpose Sensors for Surface and Subsurface Science (MUPUS) tool to measure the density and thermal and mechanical properties of the comet's surface. It showed the comet's surface was not as soft as previously believed.
• A thermal sensor was supposed to be hammered around 40 cm into the surface but this did not occur, despite the hammer setting being cranked up to its highest level.
• The DLR reckons that after passing through a 10-20 cm thick layer of dust, the sensor hit a layer of material estimated to be as hard as ice.

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Business & economy

Shell India wins ‘multi-million dollar tax dispute’

• The Bombay High Court, ruled in favour of the Indian unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc in a multi-million dollar tax dispute, the latest verdict against the tax department, which has been vigorously pursing claims against foreign firms in India.
• Shell had challenged the largest ever claim in a tax case related to transfer pricing.
• A rash of high-value tax claims on foreign firms, including IBM Corp and Nokia Oyj, in the past year has sparked criticism that overly zealous tax authorities could undermine foreign investment in India.
• In the Shell case, the tax office alleged in February last year that the company’s Indian unit under-priced shares transferred to the parent by about $2.5 billion, demanding tax on the interest the Anglo-Dutch oil company would have earned.
• It did not disclose the value of the claim. The tax sleuth had added Rs.15,000 crore and Rs.3,000 crore, respectively, to the taxable income of Shell India Markets Pvt. Ltd., the Indian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, for 2007-08 and 2008-09 in two transfer pricing cases.
• The judgment comes in the wake of two similar transfer pricing cases, which were ruled in favour of the Indian subsidiary of Vodafone Group Plc, in which the I-T department had sought adjustments of over Rs.4,500 crore last month.
• The order in favour of Shell India was passed on Tuesday by a bench of justices M. S. Sanklecha and S. C. Gupte on a petition filed by Shell India Markets.
• The transfer pricing tax orders of the I-T department against Shell and Vodafone pertain to alleged undervaluation of shares issued by their domestic subsidiaries to the parent companies abroad.
• Transfer pricing refers to the practice of arm’s length pricing for transactions between group companies based in different countries to ensure that a fair price — one that would have been charged to an unrelated party — is levied. Shell India had issued 870 million shares to Shell Gas BV in March, 2009, at Rs.10 a share.
• However, the I-T department contended that the shares were grossly undervalued, and it valued them at Rs.180 a share. The department then added the difference to the taxable income of Shell India.

Sports

India wins silver in Asian Beech Games

• India settled for the men’s 3x3 basketball silver medal at the Asian Beach Games after losing a close final to Qatar 21-20 at Phuket, Thailand.
• Vishesh Bhriguvanshi top-scored for India with eight points, while Amritpal Singh netted six. India had beaten Bangladesh 21-6 in the semifinals and Turkmenistan 21-11 in the quarterfinals earlier in the day.

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Persons in news

Indian origin student wins International Children's Peace Prize

• An American teenager has won a prestigious international prize for her charitable work to help orphans in India and other vulnerable children.
• Neha Gupta, an 18-year-old of Indian descent from Philadelphia, was awarded the International Children's Peace Prize by Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu at a ceremony in The Hague.
• She was honoured for setting up a foundation called Empower Orphans when she was just 9 after visiting an orphanage in India. The foundation has since helped thousands of children. Marc Dullaert, founder of children's rights organisation KidsRights, says Gupta, "discovered at a young age that it is possible to take action as a child and help vulnerable children."
• The winner of last year's Children's Peace Prize, Malala Yousafzai, went on to win this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

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Sources: Various News Papers & PIB

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